


The Road Home

by restlesslikeme



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: He wonders if this is how Frank feels all of the time; fire licking at the inside of his ribs, smoke crawling up his throat. Now that it’s there, David doesn’t know how to put it out.





	The Road Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is set post s1 finale although not particularly spoilery. David's relationship with Sarah is addressed and there's explicitly no infidelity that happens on or off screen.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you, as always, to V for helping me along with this. Your insight is invaluable.

 

The voicemail light blinking at him from the kitchen counter seems threatening. Most of the phone calls that come in through the landline aren’t from people David wants to talk to -- but then again, changing the number seems too final. Hanging his keys on the hook near the cupboard, he glances at the phone, debating for a moment before reaching for it and punching in the cues.

 

Somehow, the low, rough voice that comes through doesn’t actually surprise him. Instead, hearing Frank again seems almost inevitable, like he’s been waiting on it.  What he asks for, on the other hand, kind of does.

 

_“David, hey--it’s me. This is…Well, you know who this is.”_

 

As if David could forget. He takes his coat off as he listens, hanging it on the hooks near the side door. Frank’s voice sounds almost embarrassed but otherwise whole. No sputter of blood on his lips, nothing gurgling.

 

 _“Listen. You’re the computer guy,”_ the message continues. “ _So I thought, maybe a guy like me, needs a job like that -- where nobody’s gonna see his face, right? Do something behind a screen? Thing is, I uh… don’t know the first thing about that shit and -- could you see my ugly mug in a college course?”_

 

There’s a pause on the line, a huff of grim laughter, and David stands paused in the middle of the dark kitchen.

 

_“Yeah. Anyway. Call back -- or don’t. It’s up to you.”_

 

The machine beeps, leaving the room in silence, and for a moment David just hovers. The Punisher is asking for computer lessons. No call to action no... threat of imminent danger. Like he’s just going to shack up in some cubicle, running IT nine to five. Is that what this has come to? The idea’s funny enough that David can feel a laugh bubbling up in his throat, and he weighs the phone in his palm, debating.

 

In the end, he dials back the number.

 

 

\--

 

 

Frank directs him to an apartment somewhere in the Bronx.  The number on the door looks recently straightened, which David takes as a sign that Frank is doing little things with his hands as much as he can, which leaves him simultaneously fond and sad.

 

The money that David left him with would have bought him a house.

 

“Hey.”

 

Frank’s eyes are still dark and wild as ever. That’s the first thing David notices when he opens the door, then immediately wishes he didn’t. It feels exposed and odd, to realize he’d forgotten what it feels like to look Frank in the eye, the kind of power Frank has that he likely doesn’t even know about. Brushing it off, he still can’t help but smile in the corner of his mouth.

 

“I don’t even recognize you,” David says, stepping past him into the apartment without invitation. “Without your face all fucked up. Which means you’re keeping out of trouble, I suppose, huh?”

 

The place is small, but it’s tidy enough and it smells like coffee. All of Frank’s belongings are stacked in the most practical places David can think of. It’s homier than the power station anyways.

 

Frank scoffs at him, shaking his head.

 

“Trouble,” he mutters. “That what we got up to, David? Trouble?”

 

Maybe not quite.

 

“I didn’t have any of that stupid chamomile shit,” Frank moves on, and David rolls his eyes. “So I hope coffee’s fine.”

 

Frank seems idly restless, scratching at the side of his head as he moves towards the kitchenette. Then again, David supposes that if anyone has earned the right to be restless it’s Frank Castle.

 

He’d heard about the pardon; while Madani isn’t exactly someone he’d like to have dinner with, she’s a useful name to have in your back pocket. Wiping Frank from the system and turning him out was certainly framed like a favour, but anyone with half a brain knows what they actually expected it to amount to. Russo might be gone for the time being, but there are plenty of outfits just like Anvil ready to use someone like Frank for all he’s worth. And really, that’s considering a scenario where his face on the news doesn’t get him taken care of first.

 

The fact that Frank is still alive and in the city is miracle enough, even if this doesn’t seem to fit him. Then again, maybe that’s the reason he called in the first place.

 

David is getting away with himself. When he shakes himself of it, Frank is standing in front of him, holding out a mug of coffee like an offering.

 

“Coffee’s fine, yeah,” he answers belatedly, shaking his head. “Thank you. Although -- you know tea isn’t some luxury item, right. Chamomile tea is easier to make than coffee is. And it’s better for you.”

 

He doesn’t mean for it to sound like petty bickering, but it kind of feels that way, and he presses his lips together as if to quell it. He sets his coffee down on a nearby end table before stepping forward, making the decision all at once to wrap an arm around Frank’s shoulders and pull him in close.

 

“It’s good to see you,” he mumbles.

 

They talk for a long time. It becomes obvious within the first five minutes that Frank doesn’t have a damn clue what  “doing something with computers” actually consists of, and the idea gets quickly scrapped. More than anything it’s just that burning restlessness, something that David can feel gnawing at his own belly, too.

 

He tells Frank about Sarah and the kids; about how the cracks in everything got too difficult to ignore. He tells him about the house she moved into upstate -- closer to her parents, where the kids can go to school without being known as a family of traitors, where all three of them can have a fresh start.

 

Frank takes it differently than David was expecting. He’d been waiting on some kind of resentment; that David let the very thing Frank had ripped away from him slip through his fingers. He waits for Frank to call him an idiot, a coward -- something.

 

Instead there’s only grief in Frank’s dark eyes, pulling sharply at the corner of his mouth.  

 

It’s dark by the time they stop; when David stands his knees creak, and he shakes his head. He moves to apologize for taking up Frank’s time but he doesn’t get the chance. Mirroring David’s own gesture from earlier, Frank pulls him in, one broad hand gripping the nape of David’s neck as they clutch each other.

 

“See you again?” David asks, and hates himself for how needy his voice sounds. Still, he looks Frank in the eye when he says it, watches him, and Frank’s nod in return is only half hesitant.

 

“Yeah,” he says, his hand lingering against David’s neck. “Yeah, I’ll call you next week.”

 

 

\--

 

 

After a while, it’s hard to say that things are slipping away from him. With the house empty, it’s more just that they stay the way there are; there’s little reason to pull himself back up when there isn’t anyone to do it for.

 

Sarah emails about once a month; pictures of the kids, mostly, and little familiar updates. They make plans for him to see them but David is losing track of time; everything feels too distant to be real. She doesn’t hate him, she says, it just isn’t fair; their roads have forked, she worries about him. Does he understand?

 

He does, he does, he does.

 

He can go most days without speaking to a single person face to face. The loneliness doesn’t get to him as much as that hungry ache in his belly, calling him back to work every time he turns on the television and catches a headline, everytime he tries to waste time on the internet. It makes his fingers twitch.

 

He wonders sometimes if he’s always been like this.  Maybe there’s always been this ember, deep and buried at the core of him, just waiting for someone or something to come along that needed to burn and burn and burn --

 

Maybe everyone is like that, to varying degrees. Maybe it just takes a spark, a push, whether it comes in a moment of clarity or a slow degradation.  

 

He wonders if this is how Frank feels all of the time; fire licking at the inside of his ribs, smoke crawling up his throat. Now that it’s there, David doesn’t know how to put it out.

 

 

\--

 

 

He dreams that they’re back at the power station, just the two of them, locked in the dark and the damp.

 

In his dream, Frank wraps thick fingers in his hair and pulls, breathes hot fumes into David’s open mouth when he gasps out. His hands are greasy from working on some weapon or cleaning some gun. Oil, or gunpowder or soot -- something black and destructive, something David can smell.

 

He relishes the scrape of Frank’s nails against his scalp, tastes his own blood when Frank accidentally moves too fast, bumping teeth into the tender skin of his lip.

 

“Jesus, Frank,” he breathes, ragged, but he pushes into him nonetheless, loses himself to the rumble in Frank’s chest. “Easy...”

 

“Sorry,” comes the reply, low and rumbled and so mournfully raw. “Sorry, sorry...”

 

He repeats the word like a mantra, as if he can’t stop once he’s said it once. He’s apologizing for more than the sting in David’s mouth; asking for forgiveness that David has no right to give him. His hands are just as bloody, and his conscience just as heavy.

 

David snaps awake with a burn in his chest, his heart thudding against his ribs.

 

 

\--

 

 

“Maybe Gunner had it right,” Frank muses one day, lips moving just above the rim of his drink, sitting on David’s couch. “Out there solo, where nobody could find him, just keeping himself alive -- the only way he knew how.”

 

He frowns after he says it, and David wonders how long he’s been thinking it, holding that underneath his tongue until it got too heavy to hide. Frank is drinking rye but he’s hardly drunk; he can put it away better than David can, or if not he’s at least good at pretending. David is three glasses deep in his bottle of red wine, and already feeling it floating around his temples, making him slower when he blinks.

 

Maybe that’s what makes it sound like such a good idea.

 

They talk circles around what they’re really thinking, most of the time. Every now and then it makes it out -- a spilled confession, never quite a proposition from either side. When he isn’t with Frank, David spends more time than he feels comfortable admitting wired into his computer, searching things out, checking security footage, monitoring. There are little things he can do without Frank’s help, if he keeps quiet enough. Move money around. Shut servers down. Send emails and documents to people who will make sure they’re seen -- people like him, this time, not people like Dinah Madani. Over and over and over again, until he can’t see straight anymore, but the hunger never seems to fade.

 

He doesn’t ask what Frank does in his spare time, but he wonders. He hopes, and he isn’t sure what exactly he’s hoping for.

 

Frank doesn’t speak again, just rolls his neck and nurses his drink, leaving David to fester over the thought. How long can they do this for, before the levee breaks? How long can either of them stay here, with that same itch in their bones, listening to it on the news day in and day out? It’s already picked David’s life apart, thread by thread, and Frank’s pardon only extends so far -- to say nothing about his luck in staying alive.

 

“I could get something like that, you know,” David voices finally, breaking the silence. His fingers feel too tight around the stem of his glass, like he might snap it in half with the wrong movement. Even so few words feel like he’s rambling, but at the same time he can’t seem to stop.

 

“Some property. A set up like that, out in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere quiet, away from all of the...” he trails off, wetting his lips, before his free hand self consciously finds the back of his neck and he lowers his eyes.

 

Frank is silent still, although David can feel his eyes on him. Instead of meeting them he raises his glass again, tips it back against his lips and gulps the rest of his wine down. He winces a little, more at himself than the taste, then shakes his head.

 

“You’re drunk,” Frank says, quiet but firm, and he rises from the couch. His eyes look sad. He clasps one big hand over David’s shoulder as he moves past him in the doorway of the livingroom, and David can’t find the words to argue with him about it. He is, maybe, blame it on that.

 

“I’ll see you around, David.”

 

By the time he turns, Frank has closed the front door behind him and stepped out into the night, and David is left alone.

 

 

\--

 

 

He doesn’t see him around. He doesn’t hear from him, either, and at this point a week and a half with no contact is enough to kick David’s paranoia into an even higher gear. He checks security feeds first, pouring over them like he first did in the power station when he was hunting Frank down, tracking criminal activity to docks, to warehouses, to the cracks and corners of the city where he can look for any sign of him.

 

There isn’t anything -- no trail of bodies, no whiff of him on any of those conspiracy theorist vigilante tracking forums he’s so well versed with. Even Curtis has no word on him, although he seems more resigned about it than David is.

 

“Let it go, man,” is all he says, stern but tired when David finally gets up the nerve to stop by the community center. “He’ll turn up when he wants to turn up.”

 

There’s a tone to his voice that tells David they’re thinking the same thing: there’s blood in the air, even if David hasn’t found the first drop of it yet.

 

 

\--

 

 

Then, as if on cue, Frank calls him.

 

This time, his voice drags out of his throat -- like David expected the first time, like it’s catching on gravel. He doesn’t say much, just gives him an address and a choice, hangs up before David can ask any questions.

 

David goes. Whether that’s the right decision or not, he’ll leave up to someone else.

 

“Couldn’t call Curt,” is the first thing Frank says when David walks in the door, as if that’s supposed to minimize the fact that he called David instead. A cop out, no more no less, and David takes it in stride, immediately unslinging the backpack from his shoulder and reaching for the zipper.  

 

“I knew you at least wouldn’t kick my ass,” Frank continues, coughing on his own blood as David kneels down next to him. “Or couldn’t.”

 

“Jury’s still out,” David mutters in reply, but he’s already prepping the first aid kit.

 

Frank winces when David touches him, fingers working carefully over his body, mapping out bruises and lacerations. He’s gentle but he’s thorough -- at this point he’s patched Frank up enough that wasting time on keeping him comfortable is just that: wasted time.

 

“Your rib’s broken,” he tells him. “At least one.”

 

It’s too familiar of a routine; clean Frank’s mangled flesh, thread the bent needle, on and on. His hands don’t shake here: he’s always surprisingly steady as he pulls the needle back and forth through thick skin. He can get past the smell of the blood if he focuses hard enough and lets his hands work; like once again he’s ten years old, pulling back feathers as he mends a smaller patient. Swallows are twitchier than marines: David doesn’t need to hold Frank still while he works.

 

Then again, Frank is hardly a bird at all -- if anything, he’s the cat. Some urban tiger with war paint for stripes and bullets for teeth.

 

“You could flinch or something every now and then,” David mumbles, knotting the thread up, snipping the needle away with the dull kitchen scissors he’d packed for the trip. “Remind me that there’s actually something here to put back together.”

 

Which isn’t fair, but losing track of him left David panicked, and that panic has melted into pettiness. Mixed with the guilt he feels for waiting for this point, it’s a bad combination.

 

Frank scoffs, rolling his shoulder where David has finished working.

 

“Would that make you feel better?” he spits back.

 

David isn’t sure of the answer. In a perfect world, he would believe in Frank completely: not just in his efficiency, but in his methods being justified. Instead, all of it seems like a compromise; to clear out the predators you become one yourself, but you have to live with that fact. It’s hard not to see this as a fall from grace, a step off the wagon and into thin air: and that’s why he didn’t call Curt, isn’t it?

 

“I was doing surveillance and I couldn’t find you --” David says as he works, changing the subject rather than engage in whatever squabble he started. “What were you doing?”

 

As if in compromise, Frank grunts out a noise when David pricks him with the needle again, having shifted his attention to a gash on Frank’s abdomen.

 

“Figured you were still doing that shit,” Frank mutters in reply, rolling his neck as much as he can in this state, staring up at the ceiling. “Was more careful about it this time. Didn’t need you catching me on your computer screen and getting dragged back in; figured I could get in, get out, end it quick.”

 

“That worked out well,” David answers mildly, ignoring the scowl that Frank shoots his way. Then a sharpness creeps in, though he isn’t sure which of them it’s for: “How is this any of working out for you, Frank?”

 

David knows he’s entering dangerous territory, but Frank can’t run from this conversation when David’s busy stitching him back together.

 

“So, I found you this time. Who’s next? Who else is watching?”

 

Squinting, his hands stained red, David continues: “or, have you considered the very real possibility that one day you’re going to be hurt worse than Curt and I can handle? More than anyone can handle?” Once he’s started, it’s hard to stop, and the words feel sharp in his mouth. “Or do you just not care anymore?”

 

Maybe he’s being unfair -- maybe this does more harm than good in the long run. Then again, would Frank have called him, if his injuries were more serious than this, or would he just have rolled over? A few broken bones and a handful of wounds is too much of a middle ground; he’s useless on his own, but it isn’t enough to send him out, either. Not without a long wait.

 

“Don’t act like you’re so much better than me,” comes the reply, and David can see the way Frank rolls his jaw. “Hiding behind a screen like you did for two goddamn years, obsessing over this shit. Is that why your wife left you, David? It’s bullshit.” He licks blood off his lips, inhales sharply through his nostrils.  

 

“Nobody put a gun to your head, forced you to come out here,” Frank continues. “You’re not protecting your family anymore, so what’s your excuse, huh? You’re here for the same reason I am. You’re doing the same shit as me.”

 

Frank jerks his arm as if to move away, and David curses, watching uselessly at the stitch starts to tear. It’s stupid: sheer bullheaded pettiness, especially when he has nowhere to go. Instead all it leaves him with is a busted stitch and a sour expression, and David watching him with barely contained frustration.

 

“It isn’t the same thing,” David argues, swallowing thickly around what feels like a lie, and Frank shoves at his hands when David tries to reach for him again.

 

“It’s the exact same thing,” Frank counters coldly. “You know what? No wonder she threw you out. With all your hypocritical, self righteous bullshit.”

 

It’s too much; it’s always too much. Frank gets sharp when he argues: direct and cutting, and David wavers with his bloody hands hovering, cautious of being shoved again. “Will you -- stop talking about her?” David stutters on the demand, robbing it of its authority with his fumble.

 

“Yeah? Hard not to when I think we’ve got so much in common,” Frank mutters lowly. “I didn’t marry you, but sometimes it feels like I did.”

 

Pulling away from him, Frank winces at a half finished stitch, and snaps the thread off himself.  

 

“Get out of here. Okay, David? I don’t need this.”

 

 

\--

 

 

He dreams about burying Gunner Henderson in the woods, outside the refuge he made for himself. There’s dirt on his hands and crisp autumn air on his tongue -- something that didn’t actually happen, a memory he has no right to. When David puts down the shovel, it changes; Frank is there, all dark eyes and broad shoulders. His hands are warm around David’s wrists, his body heavy where they lean together. He tastes like nothing when David kisses him -- no copper, no whiskey.

 

David wakes up alone in his bed in a cold sweat.

 

“Shit,” he whispers. “Shit.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Every now and then David thinks he really is dead, this time -- it’s all the radio silence and paranoia, just him and his thoughts locked up in the house. Then there’ll be a sign of him; a flash of his face on a bodega security cam, a rumble of something online. It lets David breathe easy for a few days, before the whole cycle starts again.

 

After three weeks of it, Franks shows up on his doorstep.

 

He looks worse for wear; not quite as bad as where David left him, but not much better. He holds his weight funny, leaning into one side of himself where he huddles under his jacket, and David has to wonder how well his ribs are healing up.

 

Like he always does, David lets him in.

 

“Came to apologize,” Frank says, stepping into David’s living room with an awkwardness that aches. He keeps his hands shoved into his pockets and David has the uncomfortable urge to look at them, to hold them in his own and check his knuckles for bruises. He doesn’t say that, and he doesn’t reach for him again. When Frank speaks,  he raises his gaze, meeting David’s eye. “I owe you an apology.”

 

Shaking his head, David can’t help but have an acute awareness of himself; his unwashed hair and the clothes he’s been living in for too many days, this house that looks barely lived in. It seems hard to refute Frank’s accusations when he’s been living up to them so completely.

 

“What are we doing?” David says weakly, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore, you know, I just --” he closes his eyes for a moment, tipping his head back towards the ceiling. “You’re right. About it being an obsession,” he continues, hugging his arms closer as he turns his somber gaze back to Frank. “You’re an asshole, but you were right.”

 

As David watches, Frank bows his head.

 

“It’s like -- I thought I could go blind to it, when I came back,” he continues, wetting his lips and lowering himself down to the couch. “Instead I just see it everywhere, you know? I see the papers. People hurting. Nobody wants to do more about it than shake their heads and say it’s a shame -- and I’m one of them too. We both are. And it’s eating me alive.”

 

If anyone can understand that, it’s Frank.

 

For a moment, they’re both silent. Frank seems restless, standing in the middle of the floor and shifting on his feet, his hands still shoved out of sight. He looks like he’s weighing something --David is too much of a coward to ask what it is, too nauseated by what he thinks it could be. Too guilty with the knowledge of what his answer might be, if Frank were here to ask him to take up the fight again.

 

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Frank says finally, clearing his throat. “About, uh -- getting out. Like we talked about before, just...” He wets his lips, not meeting David’s peering gaze now. If David didn’t know any better, he’d say Frank looks self conscious; instead he settles for uneasy.

 

“Middle of nowhere. Somewhere I don’t have to look at it all the damn time, away from this city. It’s all I’m good for. Everyone knows it; that’s why they turned me out, right? Figured I’d fall back on it eventually, wind up dead sooner or later. Feels a lot lately like I’m coming close to making good on that.”

 

Frowning, David leans forward onto his knees.

 

“I’m saying,” Frank continues, speaking like he’s pushing the words past his lips. “Not that it fuckin’ matters, but. I guess I’m not ready to give them the satisfaction just yet.”

 

David laughs.

 

It slips out before he can stop it, weak and dry from his chest as he bends his head down to his hands. For a minute he just stays like that, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes, grinning in disbelief.

 

“So you came to say goodbye?”

 

It seems all too sentimental and too absurd. It’s good -- of course it’s good. A year ago, David would have been relieved enough to cry hearing it: Frank, choosing a way out that didn’t end in a bullet. He’ll probably come back around to that -- right now David is just too damn tired.

 

Frank is silent, shifting his weight in the floor. One big hand comes up, rubbing at his jaw and now David can see the dry split between his ring and middle fingers, the fading yellow-blue that he knew would be there. His mouth is a tight line, and when he finally speaks it’s not words so much as a grunt:

 

“No.”

 

Pausing, David narrows his eyes at him, before the thought connects.

 

“Oh,” he guesses, exhaustion weighing on his voice. “You want to make good on my offer to find you a place first?” Of course. He’s already stepping out of the room, heading towards his computer desk, shoulders slumped as he gestures vaguely in the air. “Yeah. Sure. Why not; one more favour... I can dig something up.”

 

Behind him, Frank makes a muttering sound; it’s impossible to decipher, but it seems like there’s a curse in there somewhere. He moves faster than David expects him to, and that bruised up hand seizes tight on the crook of his arm, stalling him. David stumbles a little, eyes wide as he turns to face Frank -- finding his face surprisingly soft.

 

“It’s gonna hollow you out,” Frank says, his voice low as he steps closer. “The news and -- all your surveillance shit. What you’re doing. It’s gonna run you into the ground until there’s nothing left. You said it yourself.”

 

David waits, tense, feeling every breath that he takes, feeling how warm Frank’s hand is even though the material of his shirt. He tries not to think about his dreams. Tries not to think about dirt under his nails and Frank’s breath on his lips.

 

“You’re better than that --” Frank says, always so achingly genuine when he means something. “I can’t let that happen, David. I didn’t come for a favour.”

 

Tentatively but firmly, he raises his other hand to the side of David’s head, fingers just barely pushing into disheveled curls. He draws him in, watching him steadily as he does it and again David has that feeling of being so helpless under his gaze. David doesn’t resist when he leans their foreheads together, and in response, Frank heaves a breath.

 

“Come with me,” Frank says. “Let’s -- let’s get out.”

 

David doesn’t laugh this time. Instead there’s a pressure in his chest, aching and aching, and he touches his fingers over Frank’s heart as if to see if he can find it there, too. It’s an instinctive gesture but Frank doesn’t chastise him for it, so he lingers, feeling the way his pulse thuds, feeling Frank’s breath go up and down.

 

“Might not work,” Frank rumbles lowly. “I just don’t know how much longer I can stay here in the middle of it without falling right back in.” he shakes his head, huffing out a breath. “Maybe that’s running away, but --”

 

“No,” David interrupts quickly, before Frank can spiral too much, before his silence is taken for something that it isn’t. “I want to. I want to try.”

 

That’s all it takes. The fingers grazing at the edge of David’s hair dig in, burying tight and holding David in place as Frank closes the gap between them, pressing their mouths together. He’s gentler about it than David expects, like he fully anticipates David to balk. He doesn’t. He opens up for him, uttering a sigh that sounds like relief, and Frank swallows it up.

 

“Let’s do it,” David says, words spoken against Frank’s mouth when they break apart. “Let’s get out.”

 

 

\--

 

 

It’s a genuine cabin in the woods; all pine, built by a man who lived out his last days there, and then passed it on to some distant nephew with no use for it. David pays in cash and puts his own name on the deed -- he figures that between the two of them, Frank has more people interested in his whereabouts, new identity or not.

 

“It’ll need some work,” David warns,  listening to the dirt crunch under the tires of the van. The nearest town is nearly an hour’s drive, in good conditions. “Uh-- it’s got a roof and a well. And a wood stove. I figured that covered the basics and the rest of it… you know. Gets fixed up.”

 

“Work’s good,” Frank assents, fingers tapping idly at the corner of the car window. “Keeps you living.”

 

They’re well off the map by the time he pulls up in front of the place and shuts the vehicle off. As David steps out of the van, he lets himself look at it. The paint on the shutters is peeled back to practically nothing, the windows look dingy and dark.

 

Still. Instead of a boxed in kind of isolation, there’s something welcoming about the smell of the woods -- pine and fresh air and dead leaves and nothing else. No traffic over the sound of a distant woodpecker, and no city smog covering up the clear white sky.

 

The cabin is standing, worn but sturdy. Run down, but not derelict. Not hopeless.

 

He turns when he feels Frank’s hand on the back of his neck, his steady presence at his back. There’s a thoughtfulness in Frank’s eyes, and when he catches David looking, the corner of his mouth starts to pull upwards. For the first time in a long time, David feels something like peace.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
